Carmen, Nursery, Cattle, Gophers

Carmen

The other day Carmen called me. Carmen was the chief election judge for the precinct I worked in during the Primary election. Carmen was about to finally fill out the survey on how we thought the election went.

We re-lived old stories and learned a few new ones on what happened during the election. Carmen said the officials in charge of the election told her that our team did great. We also learned that we can stay together as team for the general election. One woman moved east of the mountains so our team won't be exactly the same. But I hope everyone else volunteers again as we were a good and fun group.

I thought of another suggestion so when I was near the courthouse to speak with an official from the Planning Department about Tronstad road and the Whitefish River Ranch South subdivision, I stopped to speak with the election officials. My suggestion was to include a precinct map with our materials. We shared the Armory location with two other precincts and when the voter wasn't listed in our book we sent them to another precinct based on what precinct we thought their address was located. Guess work by the judges on my team who lived in Whitefish. Me, I hadn't a clue. I am not sure the election officials will include a map, but at least I made the suggestion. The election official told me our team did great during the Primary election.

Nursery order

I got a card from the nursery where last year I had bought plants and 95% of them died because the nursery had sent them to me in August. I had sent my info in just prior to the 1 year end date for the guarantee. The nursery appears to be honoring their guarantee. I had requested the replacement items not to be shipped till Fall as I didn't want to get them in August again this year. The card said they will ship my order in the Spring.

Cattle

The cattle are behaving. (I cringe when I say that as that compliment seems to give them license to get into trouble). Tonight half the herd was near the fence and I wanted a break from shoveling the dirt back around my well's shed. I had a 2 gallon pail of apples that had fallen from my apple trees. I also gave them some loaves of French bread I had gotten from the food bank. The bread was dry, which is how the cattle seem to like it.

In the past when I had given these cattle some apples they didn't eat them as they expected bread from me and the apples were an unknown item. Since then I had left some apples on the ground across the fence for the cattle to discover. Now they know what the apples taste like and tonight they really went for the apples. Many apples were very small so I would open my hand and between their large tongues and my pushing them against their mouth, they got most of them. And I did not get bitten from all the teeth I seen. Lots of tongues and teeth near me as the cattle jockeyed to get the food. My hands were covered in cattle "slober" by the time I was done giving them their treat.

The cattle had "cattle breath" tonight. They were in the middle of eating grass when I fed them. Chewed up green grass and cattle saliva doesn't smell that good. It almost stopped me cold a few times when several cattle pushed and shoved to get the apples and bread and had their mouths close to me.

The neighbor to the south has rented his pasture to hold five horses. I have seen when the cattle are in the south hayfield a few of them stop and "talk" with the horses. It looks that way as the cattle and horses stand opposite each other across the fence and face each other. I haven't gotten close enough to overhear their conversations.

The alfalfa is now dry after all the heat we had the last week, and also due to the lack of moisture since early July. I had one bloat blocker left and I put it out. I also put some of the salt blocks back out.

I had to repair one of the wooden stands used to hold the salt blocks. Now that I am not chasing cattle or building fence I finally was able to rebuilt the stand. The stand was old but fairly sturdy. But cattle are hard on things.

Gophers

It seems as if each August the regular gophers disappear down their holes. Guess what? It's August now and the gophers have disappeared. No more warning chirps when I am in the pasture. Many of the gopher holes now have spider webs over them. I haven't caught any gophers for days now, nor has any of the traps been triggered. I have left the traps as is for now in case a stray gopher is still active. The pocket gophers are still active and I caught two more today. I also found a fresh mound of dirt in the corral. *sigh* I moved one trap back to catch this pocket gopher.